


An Ineffable Taste in Pop Music

by Fairyglass



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Be-bop, Dating-not-Dating, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Idiots in Love, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Long Looks, M/M, Pre-Slash, Twee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 07:04:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20774513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fairyglass/pseuds/Fairyglass
Summary: It's a long afternoon somewhere in the 1960s and Aziraphale has invited Crowley to the shop to sample a new bakery he's recently discovered. Unfortunately for Crowley's more refined taste, Aziraphale has also discovered... pop music.





	An Ineffable Taste in Pop Music

**Author's Note:**

> I am not a citizen of the United Kingdom though have dedicated a healthy portion of my North American life to their media. If I get a UK to US fact or turn of phrase wrong, my humblest apologies.

Aziraphale’s taste in music had always been a bit twee. Well, Crowley considered grimly, Aziraphale’s taste in most everything bent itself towards the twee. 

As the principality bustled in from the backroom, shirt sleeves bared but cufflinks polished and bowtie crisp, his buff-colored waistcoat protected by a tidy, pale yellow apron as he set a fresh pot of tea to the table, Crowley took his assessment one step further: Aziraphale, _as a whole_, was twee. 

But even this was something beyond the pale.

“What _is_ this?” Crowley glared at the Victrola as it spun the 45”. The adaptor was a bright pop of blue plastic, a modern incongruity against the handsome antique. 

The juxtaposition was, of course: twee. Why couldn’t he have just gotten a normal black sprog like everyone else? No. His just had to be bright blue. Obviously.

“Oh,” the angel fussed brightly, setting a cozy onto the teapot before dusting his fingers unnecessarily against the apron. “They’re called the Monkees.” He paused just the barest of moments between syllables as if savoring the word as a whole. “But they spell it wrong, like those lads named after the insects. Isn’t that funny?”

Crowley looked coldly at the Vic, then just as cooly up at Aziraphale, round sunglasses only sharpening the harsh judgment cast across his pinched face. His hand reached out, dragging the needle deliberately across the grooves before popping the record off.

Wincing with disapproval, Aziraphale’s hands danced gently in the air before him: they wanted to both pluck the discordant scratch from the air just as much as they wanted to smooth away Crowely’s malcontent. “Now see you don’t ruin it?!” His tone held the line between a whinge and a plea. Pulling off the apron, he draped it across the back of his chair with a petulant twitch of his shoulder. “You’re the one who told me to ‘expand my horizons’. So I did, and I have, and they are charming.”

“They’re American,” Crowley muttered, nose scrunching as he read the label's B side. "Saturday’s Child. Don’t work _too_ hard there, ‘Monkees’.”

Aziraphale blinked once in confusion, sharp chin jutting to the side before he made the connection. “Ah, no. Monday here is not fair of face, nor does Saturday’s child toil.” His mouth worked into a tiny moue that Crowley pointedly ignored to instead examine the table setting. The less time spent watching Aziraphale pucker and pout his mouth the better all around. He idly spun the record off his finger as he looked over the spread. 

“But it's no matter,” Aziraphale continued, gracefully arcing his hand towards the second seat, proffering it to the demon. “Because our jaunty bards seek Saturday’s child because she drives them wild.” His eyes popped, the blue a flash against the white, joining his ebullient smile.

“All of them? All at once? Lucky girl,” Crowley grinned with a dry lascivity, sinking into the seat with his own sprawling elegance. The record looped at his side, his fingers curling to keep it moving around and around like gunslinger.

Turning to the sideboard, Aziraphale gathered the small pink pastry boxes, tutting a chiding sound. “Don’t be crude.”

“Crude is what I do, angel.” Crowley spread his hands wide, catching the record like a top hat between his fingers and clucking his tongue against the back of his teeth in such a way that the forked little point hung suspended for a dramatic second. 

Aziraphale swallowed quickly and ducked his head, regarding the individual boxes with a keen scrutiny. “Well. Yes. I suppose it is,” he said, still looking down. In a hurry to move the topic onto something else, he rushed out, “Do you wish to try the chocolate raspberry or the lemon froth? Both are scrumptious.” Composure rebuilt, he could turn to look up again, holding each out just a fraction. 

Caught in the spill of afternoon light, in his trim turtleneck and cardinal red velvet coat, Crowley cut a mod fashion plate not actually seen beyond the pages of magazines. Real people never looked nearly as good as the models did, unless you were Anthony J. Crowley. But then, Crowley wasn’t exactly a 'real person', so could achieve such easy perfection casually. Aziraphale couldn’t say he liked his ginger hair in the odd bob that was somehow both too short _while_ being simultaneously too long in all the wrong places, but he would confess it suited the image the fiend was looking to achieve. And it _was_ a rather smart, handsome image. Dashing. Daring. Even a brush of mystery. A carefully detailed sophistication that said this was a man who knew a thing or two and wouldn’t you like to know what they might be. 

The angel was staring. Crowley’s arched a single eyebrow over his sunglasses, long fingers spinning the record back up slowly. 

Clearing his throat, Aziraphale tried once more to wrest his wandering attention back. One might call it mooning, certainly pining would be applicable, and all of it was absolutely unbecoming of an angel. Crowley was nothing more than a friend. An unconventional friend, but a friend nonetheless. And that’s where it all had to firmly stay. 

A smirk touched the very corner of the demon’s mouth.

“The lemon must be downright divine then if you’re equally as willing to have it over a chocolate.” Unerringly, Crowley collected the correct box from Aziraphale’s hand, looking over the bakery’s stamp. With the other, he flicked the 45” as hard as he could against a wall, shattering the single into a thousand tiny pieces.

Aziraphale's attention snapped to follow its path indigently. “Well!” He set the remaining box at his plate, crossing to witness the damage. 

“Trust me, angel. I’ve done you a favor.” Crowley deftly pulled at the cotton string holding the lid closed, indifferent to his casual destruction. 

His mouth turned down, Aziraphale stooped, but not before passing his hand over the improbably tiny shards. When he stood, he held once more the whole of the 45”, gently blowing imaginary motes of dust off its surface.

“Really? You’re going to use a miracle on your Monkees?” He was carefully transferring the elaborate lemon confection from the box to his plate. The twee china plates with the scattering of rosebuds and gold, gilded edges. Crowley hadn’t had to look up to feel Aziraphale’s handiwork.

“I can get away with the tiny ones if they’re directly countering a curse,” Aziraphale said with an officious sniff, moving to gently slip the single back into its paper sleeve. “And I don’t care what you say, I like them.” Crowley made an indistinct but criticizing chuff.

Rather than tempt the fate of Micky Dolenz a second time, and in search of a more harmonious afternoon, Aziraphael ran his finger across the player’s selection before tugging Cole Porter’s Anything Goes out. 

Crowley was playing mother, pouring a tea for each of them. “What is it about you lot and musicals?” It was insignificant as far as apologies went, but with the drop of a single sugar into the rosebud spray teacup and an extra flourish of his pinky, his hands pulled away to reveal not just the tea, but the chocolate and raspberry whip waiting for Aziraphale to sit, little pink box never to be seen or heard from again.

“You like this one too,” the angel reminded. Crowley only shrugged in the barest of acknowledging acquiescence. 

Setting his shoulders and tugging his vest down once, Aziraphale took his seat, eyes lit bright for the confection waiting for him. Crowley’s crime was already dismissed to the past, a luxury of timekeeping one could foster after the first thousand years or so. They shared a smile over the quaint setting. 

For Crowley, their little tête-à-tête’s were an exercise in temptation and indulgence. It gave him a charge to lure the Host away from his task at hand and ply him with just one more bite of anything, one more sip of something. And yet somehow, the exact same activity for Aziraphale was an expression of love, grace, devotion to a craft, celebration of skill. The rewards of going forth and multiplying. By rights, none of this should be working, and yet -- it did.

And he was so very pretty to look at.

They tapped forks together in a toast before tucking in.

While Aziraphale was distracted with his treat, and at least two may I please bites off Crowley’s own plate, the demon quietly warped the Last Train to Clarksville/Saturday’s Child single in such a way as to never play true again. If Aziraphale was going to insist on listening to lovestruck American teeny-bopper sop, Crowley would at least fetch him a copy of the Everly Brothers.


End file.
